


A Friend In Need

by sartiebodyshots



Series: Though I'd Loved To Stay Forever, This Is Why I Can't Remain [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lesbian Courier, Post Dead Money DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 13:46:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14833415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sartiebodyshots/pseuds/sartiebodyshots
Summary: August promised she'd be back in two weeks.  She was gone for much longer.  But now she's back.





	A Friend In Need

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Pride my friends! I finally finished this and cleaned it up some, and I'm fairly happy with the result! It's always fun writing the New Vegas Gay Family (tm).

“What happened to your arm?” Arcade exclaims in an exasperated voice.

Veronica snorts, but doesn’t look up from her power fist.  She’s trying to make the knuckles a little more study, and people accidentally wander into Arcade’s tent all the time.  It must be bad to make Arcade’s voice pitch that high, but Veronica has seen too many injuries to be interested in seeing more.  

“I have a headache, actually,” a familiar voice says.  “Arm’s fine.”

Despite the sudden rush of adrenaline, Veronica forces herself to take a shaky breath before she looks up.  She really doesn’t want to admit how much she’s missed her while she’s been away, or how hurt she is that she left her behind.  Or see how badly hurt she is. 

“August-”

“Arcade, really, I’m fine.  Just got a headache,” August says.  “Need to take a nap, too.” 

Tearing her eyes away from her powerfist, Veronica tilts her head upward.  August is standing there, holding one arm at an unnatural angle, but smiling at them widely.  Her red hair has been cut short with a dull blade, and her good hand comes up to tug at the neck of her shirt.  

“Where have you been?” Arcade asks.

August sits down on a nearby chair, not quite looking over at Veronica.  She sighs as Arcade starts undoing the bandages. 

“Don’t,” August says halfheartedly.  “You’re not going to be happy with me.”

Arcade adjusts his glasses so he can give her an unimpressed look over the frame.  “I’m already not happy with you. I seem to remember you saying that you’d be gone for two weeks, tops.”

“I kind of got kidnapped,” August says.  

“Hm,” Arcade says.  “You still could’ve written.  Found a ham radio. I dunno.”

Something in that makes August wince, and Veronica tries not to get up to comfort her.  She’s  _ upset _ .  August just  _ left. _  She could’ve died and left Veronica with… nothing.  No knowledge of if she was dead or if she had just moved on, despite her unfinished business in Vegas proper.  

The strength of Veronica’s upset is funny, considering they’re not actually, like, together.  Hilarious.

Veronica does end up getting up, and she doesn’t look at either of them as she crosses the tent to head towards the exit.  She can’t breathe; she needs air, even though outside there’s going to be too much air, Veronica just knows it. 

“Veronica…” August says.

“Let her go,” Arcade says so softly that Veronica almost thinks she’s making it up.  

It doesn’t matter, because she’s outside now.  It is too much, but it’s still better than the inside of the tent, where  _ she _ is.  

August always makes things topsy turvy for Veronica.  And it’s only gotten worse the longer they’ve known each other.

* * *

“Hey, Veronica?” August jogs to catch up to her some time later, wincing even though Arcade gave her a clean-enough-August-what-do-you-mean-you’ve-been-breathing-poison bill of health.  “Can I talk to you?”

“Yeah,” Veronica says, not sounding enthused about it.  

“I’m sorry.  That I was gone,” August says.  “I know things haven’t been easy lately and disappearing on you couldn’t’ve made it easier.”

“We were fine,” Veronica says, too quickly, voice pitched too high.  “We were fine without you.”

August’s eyes widen and she nods, stepping back a bit.  “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t really mean that you needed me. Just, uh, that I wanted to be there for you.”

Veronica tucks a stray peice of hair back under her hood.  She takes a moment more to think before shrugging. 

“It’s fine, August,” Veronica finally says, with a tiny smile that seems so, so sad.  “Really.”

August knows it can’t be.  She’s left her home, and August knows she blames herself for the Followers that were killed by the Brotherhood.  She wishes that she knew what else to say to make this right. Maybe there’s nothing to say. 

“I met Elijah,” August blurts out.  “He was there.” 

Veronica stills, and August wishes she hadn't blurted it out.  She just doesn't know how to lightly broach the subject of meeting and then murdering Veronica's mentor.  

“How is Father Elijah?” Veronica asks.  

A valid yet incredibly awkward question. 

“I have a message from him.  It’s labelled for you,” August says instead.  

It’s awkward, with one arm bandaged, but she’s able to hand over the package to Veronica.  When she does, the lock pops open and the holotape itself is revealed. 

“What do I do?” Veronica asks, running her fingers along the tape.  

“You can listen on my pipboy,” August says.  “I’ll try not to listen.”

August has had enough of listening to Elijah’s voice anyway.

“Okay,” Veronica says softly.

August holds her pipboy arm out to Veronica, and Veronica inserts the tape.  She hesitates for a moment before pressing play.

When August hears Elijah’s voice again, she flinches instinctively.  She presses her arm further into Veronica’s space, as if she’s trying to separate her arm from her body.  Her breath is coming shallowly and she feels the heavy collar around her neck again, and August fights to keep an even face.  This is about Veronica, not her.

Veronica watches her curiously for a moment, but returns her focus to the holotape.  

Personally, August is trying not to listen to Elijah at all, so she focuses instead on studying Veronica.  There are bags beneath her eyes and she looks pale, but otherwise she looks reasonably healthy. She probably has Arcade to thank for that, at least partially.  

“You okay?” August asks when the tape stops.

“It was so weird.  Father Elijah has never been the most stable man, but here… well, you heard it.  He was delusional. Only the signature seemed familiar. He said that he would save the Brotherhood, bring back one of the greatest treasures of the Old World, to save us all,” Veronica says.  “Wipe the Mojave clean.”

“Well,” August says, swallowing hard as she takes her arm back.  She pops out the holotape and hands it to Veronica, slowly so she can think.  “You don’t have to worry about that.”

“He’s dead,” Veronica says.  

“I’m sorry,” August says with as much sincerity as she can muster.  And she is sorry for her pain. But also, not so sorry that Elijah is dead and buried.  “There wasn’t any other choice.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Veronica says.  “For whatever happened.”

August shrugs.  “It’s fine. And I really am sorry that I left.”

“What happened, August?  You were supposed to be back so much sooner, and Arcade and I thought you were  _ dead _ ,” Veronica says.  “For weeks, we thought you were dead.”

“I was kidnapped, and taken far away.  I don’t really want to talk about the details,” August says.  “If you trust me even a little, trust me when I say that I got back here as soon as I could.”

Veronica nods slowly.  She takes a step into August’s personal space, and when August doesn’t react, pulls her into a tight hug.  

August lets Veronica hold her close, but she can’t quite return the hug.  It feels so nice, warming something deep inside her that she’s cut off, but she can’t hug back because her whole body feels too heavy to move.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Veronica murmurs before stepping back.

August’s cheeks are wet and she realizes that it’s tears, and that the tears are hers.  She wipes them away hurriedly, nodding her agreement. 

“It’s good to be back.”

* * *

“You two okay now?” Arcade asks.

“We will be,” August says.  She’s perched on the edge of one of the sick beds.  “Are  _ we _ okay?”

Arcade shrugs.  “We’ll be fine.”

“I am sorry,” August says.  

Arcade sighs, looking up from his work.  He gets to his feet and crosses the tent so he’s standing in front of her.  When August looks up to make eye contact, he looks… weary. Old, even though he’s not too much older than she is.  

“It’s not that you were gone, August.  You’ve got enough new scars and aches to prove that you didn’t take a fun trip,” Arcade says.  “Your breathing doesn’t sound quite right, either, which I’m still concerned about, by the way.”

August tilts her head.  “Then what?”

Arcade sits next to her on the bed, examining her seriously, as if he’s trying to determine whether or not he’s willing to tell the truth. 

“You know that people care about you, right?’  Arcade says.

“What?” August is startled by this change in topic.

“You come back from your time away smiling with a broken arm and laughing about breathing poison so deeply your lungs still hurt.  You still joke about your grave and your brain injury like it’s nothing,” Arcade says. “Like we’re supposed to laugh along.”

“I survived, Arcade,” August says.  “No sense not laughing about it. You can’t cry over spattered brain matter.”

Arcade sighs, rubbing his temple.  “Your jokes are funny- not as funny as you think, mind you- but you dying, you not coming back, that’s not funny.  What if it was me? Or Veronica? Would this be so funny, then?” 

August’s eyes widen as she thinks about Arcade with a bomb collar wrapped around his neck, running from the beeping that could signal his death.  About Veronica surrounded by holographic ghosts, hiding behind a couch as the eerie display carries on. The Cloud suffocating them both: a slow, painful death if you’re lucky.  A rebirth if you’re not.

“That’s what I thought,” Arcade says.  

“I’ll try to keep it to only my most hilarious one liners,” August says.  When Arcade turns to give her a hard look, she continues. “My clear memories start with being buried alive after being shot in the head- what little I remember before that is a blur.  It’s taking everything I have not to knock your radio off the table because I am terrified of it. When I think about telling you why, my whole body goes numb and I can’t. But my life has to be funny, because I can’t be a tragedy.  I refuse.” 

August hates the light prickle of tears in her eyes, and the way her hands shake just a little.  There’s no easy solution to this; Elijah is gone, but what he did will remain.

“I understand,” Arcade says, with a sigh.  “Perks of being our fearless leader- we can’t really tell you what to do.”

“I will try to tone it down,” August says.  

“Thank you,” Arcade says.

August sighs and leans her head on Arcade’s shoulder.  The weather is too hot for this, like always, but she needs to remember what it feels like to not be hunted.  

“You’re okay, August.  You’re going to be okay,” Arcade says.  

“I know,” August says.  

* * *

Veronica comes in some time later, to see Arcade and August sitting together.  She still doesn’t know what she feels about August disappearing and then coming back like nothing happened, with the news that her mentor was dead, most probably by her hand.  

But when she sees August leaning against Arcade, her face pale except for the dark bags that have etched their way under her eyes, the confusion drops away.  August has wandered her way right into Veronica’s chest somehow, with her wide eyed do-gooding and headlong charges into righteous danger. 

Veronica can set aside her hurt for long enough to sit on August’s other side.  She wraps an arm around August’s firm body, rubbing her back gently. 

August tilts her head.  Somehow she makes her face look grateful, even if she’s not smiling.  

They stay like that for a while, before starting to pack to head out into the wastes once more.  

**Author's Note:**

> Dead Money was always the event that I thought would have the most traumatic impact on August, even beyond getting shot and left for dead.


End file.
